Good afternoon, Naturelady,

I think you probably are wrong. If I were in your boyfriend's place, I would be pretty offended and would regard this as a strong violation of my privacy. It would be a dealbreaker for me.

So I guess the question is - What are you really trying to find out? What are you feeling when this is happening?

Perhaps getting to the bottom of your feelings will help guide you to what you need to look at within yourself that makes you obsessive over this.

Good luck!

Lady, you're not alone. I think many many have an almost pavlovian response to that text bell on our mate's phone that tickles our insecurities.

I was thinking about this the other day. If my wife was actually "talking" on the phone, I wouldn't have such a problem with it. Why? Because I would be able to overhear her chatting with her girlfriend or her brother or some school related thing. But as it is texts are this mysterious unknown, and my imagination goes wild with deep daemons of doubt and fear from inside me.

I am dealing with a lot of crap right now that has exposed insecurities that run to my core. I was able to reveal this to my wife the other day and she was very supportive. As an adult who suffered from child abuse I am very sensitive to the possibility that somebody I love/trust and who I believe loves me could also hurt me. I feel "unsafe" even in the face of evidence to the contrary. My wife can give me as much reassurance as she can--and while those strokes help, they don't erase my feelings that I was unsafe as a child.

So for me this is about recovery, and faith. It is about recognizing that I do not have control over her or the situation. It is about facing the reality that she "could" (conceivably) hurt me, but that I would be okay even if she did. Somebody advised me recently, that trusting her starts with trusting myself.

From what I'm learning about the codependency recovery process, these are the very things we're working on. So I'm trying to redirect my energy away from wondering what she's texting to working the program, myself and my recovery.

Hope this helps!

I would have to agree with Roxie. What you are doing really is a form of control, which usually only makes adults respond adversely. The book "Codependent No More" teaches us how to stop setting ourselves up for failure by attempting to control that which is uncontrollable. You will lose every time. Attempting to control an adult is a battle you will lose EVERY time. Control is illusion. While you are attempting to control him, what has actually happened is that he is controlling you.

Hi,

I hope you can learn to give him some space. My brother-in-law acts the way you are describing sometimes with my sister and it is nothing but controlling and annoying. He has no reason to be so over-the-top about her. She has nothing going on, but girlfriends, family, their daughter and her friends. It is absolutely a control issue and none of us thinks it is funny or cute. My sister gets fed up with it, too. Please try to remember that he is a separate person and he will have friends and things going on that do not include you. That is as it should be. It does not mean that he is doing anything wrong. It has been my experience that if someone tries to put a choke hold on me, I am very likely to push them away. It sounds like your bf feels the same way. Smothering a person is not loving them. Try to focus on what is going on with you, when you feel compelled to be overly involved in his private business.

Thank you all so much for your responses. They are helpful more than you know.

Dear Nature lady,

Nobody is ever wrong for their feelings...but our reactions we should look at. Are we hurting our-self or another person with how react from our feelings??? Our reactions are what we need to make the best use of in a healthy way.

I have the same issues its a horrible feeling that usually comes with a lot of guilt because we know should allow our partner privacy but at the same time fear gets the best of us and we start obsessing about "What if" What if they are spending all our money, what if they are seeing another woman and having sex, and so on...it can drive you crazy and them.

What it boils down to is wanting to control another person and obsessing about them and not taking care of our-self...I know...as I am stuck on this issue right now, but on my way out of it because the first thing is admitting it and working through it to overcome it.

So I feel that your on your way to healing your self which needs to be done FIRST...which probably feels super hard because if your anything like me your probably always looking to help others before your self and you cant... you have to be healthy first...I know I am struggling too, to be better to myself.

Now if I were you, you should find self help audio-books on co-dependency and learn all you can about "your own" behavior management...thats what I am doing and journaling what ever my feelings are regardless how it sounds it needs to get out and then work from there to address them. You can get tons of stuff from the library if money is a problem.
((HUGS)) and best wishes,
Lyn

Man, one more thing i'm guilty of doing to my wife!!

I'm really trying to work through this because as others have said I do know this is a form of control that we try to hold onto.

Even thinking about a time when I was in this position raises my blood pressure. I just have to keep reminding myself that nothing is going on that shouldn't be. I also have to remind myself of the times I over reacted only to find out she was texting back and forth to our son :(

I was so embarrassed. In trying to find ourselves i'm learning we have to let others be themselves too. And sometimes that means we don't have to know everything and we definitely don't have to control everything...

Keep us posted on your progress... Talking about it and hearing others talking about it has definitely helped to get me going in the right direction.

This is a particularly interesting topic for me because my wife had what could be considered an "emotional affair" with an old highschool friend--much of it via her phone.

But as I've worked through this, I've come to terms with the fact that her "affair" was only slightly over the border of an innocent friendship. While she admits it was inappropriate for a married woman, It's how it made me *feel* that's interesting.

What it did was activated (or I should say exposed) some very very deep insecurities inside of myself. It was a tiny straw that broke the camel's back of my farce of an emotional life. I had been depressed, addicted, and developed many codependent behaviors to accomodate my own lack of self-esteem, shame, guilt, self-loathing, pain, you name it.

So now I have to rebuild my emotional life. And part of that means reflecting on issues like this and trying to figure out a healthy approach.

I'm terrified of my wife having an "emotional affair." But when you think about the definition of that term, it's activity that takes her emotional energy away from our relationship. It's only detrimental to our relationship if it's taking something AWAY from our relationship that BELONGS in our relationship.

So when I reflect on our relationship I have to admit that her various friendships on facebook (mostly her girlfriends a few male friends) do not, in fact, take away from our relationship. Yes there have been times when our relationship has been strained, and my wife will find solace in the strokes she gets from these superficial interactions on facebook. But in reality I really don't have a problem with them unless they're taking an unreasonable amount of her attention from me or redirecting her emotional investment away from our marriage.

This is a really tricky subject because it rubs raw all of my codependent wounds and behaviors. I have to admit that my wife is her own person, and she's going to have friendships with others. She's going to SHARE WITH THEM WITHOUT ME. And that is okay for her AND us. It's healthy.

I CAN have boundaries and request that we have our own "alone" time together--without her 500 facebook friends and texts. I can respect her judgement that she's not going to lead-on some male friend of hers and give him the wrong idea. I can trust that she is not going to allow the emotional energy appropriate to the marriage to get redirected elsewhere. While accepting the fact that as a human being she needs a diverse emotional support system that includes people beyond myself. These are healthy boundaries and "understandings."

It is then up to me to feel my insecurity and deal with it. She's not my mother's arms from when I was 3 years old. She's not my therapist. I have to accept my feelings and take on my own journey of discovery with my HP.

One little twist that does complicate this a little. I do feel like a partner should be sensitive to the other person's insecurities sometimes. I think that means accepting that there's behavior which is logically "harmless" but disrespectful to your partners feelings. We all have insecurities--even healthy people. So we both have our side of the bargin to hold up here. Me as a codependent I will work on my own sense of self esteem and strengthen my own sense of security with my HP, myself, and my own network of friends and family. While my wife will be sensitive to my (healthy) insecurities, and will not do things that would make a healthy person feel insecure.

GlassHouse, This is where I really need assistance..........on how easy it is, through different mediums, for people to have "emotional" relationships with others, other than their S.O. My logic as well as my codependency says it is a slippery slope and I feel I need to be with someone completely unsavvy with the "net" and texting these days.

Is there a chapter or session within the books/therapy sessions specifically about what should be the boundaries of these outside emotional relationships before they constitute emotional cheating?

Apb, Somebody more experienced than me might know the right material to read to help you through this. All I know is it's painful.

I'm only just coming to terms with the horrible feeling I get when I realize that my wife could have an affair and I'd never know about it. It wasn't what my wife DID that bothered me, it was the fact that somebody could do something without me knowing about it that caused me to implode. "OMG, you mean I'm not in control?" I still have a long road ahead of me to accept that fact.

Sounds like you're already understanding that if they have any way to contact another person, then they have the opportunity. And that's the daemon you've got to face. It's not their actions we're afraid of, it's the opportunity we're afraid of.

Honestly I've struggled through the "boundaries" issue as well. But even then being obsessed with boundaries just feels like another form of control.

Now I'm at the point where I feel like I really really need to focus on my own sense of well being that does not in any way depend on her actions. Of course I'm not going to let her cause me pain, or her actions actively embarrass or disrespect me. But besides those sorts of things, I cannot afford to be concerned about what she "might" do or be doing given some opportunity.

ditto, I struggle with this issue myself, so thank you for putting this question out there

Hi GlassHouse - You bring a different perspective to this issue. I have been thinking about my relationship with my husband. He was a really great guy, but he could not possibly have filled every social need that I had and honestly he would not have wanted to. We loved each other, but I spent time with other friends, too and so did he. He was not a big fan of certain activities, so I would go with my sister, mom and niece. Having outside interests and appropriate outside relationships enhanced our own relationship.

I've been having this same issue. My partner did cheat on me so for a time I thought knowing absolutely everything about his activities was justified and that I was even entitled to snoop through his phone and emails to make sure nothing was going on anymore but sometimes I would get myself so worked up that I would use any little thing I found to fuel an argument.

It wasnt until I joined DailyStrength that I realised how damaging I was being to him and to myself. My partner feels terrible for what he has put me though and is taking steps to get better. I need to trust that hes doing the right thing by us and if it proves unsuccessful and he can not remain loyal, we will part ways. I can not control his actions.

Ive found that concentrating on myself, keeping busy and doing my own thing with friends and family has helped me a great deal. If I get the urge to snoop, I think about how Ive hurt him in the past and quickly busy myself with doing something I enjoy so the time I might have spent dwelling over the what ifs is spend on a positive activity.

Merique,

Your comments remind me of another angle on this. A while back I would have pretty serious fits of anxiety in which I would grow increasingly concerned that my wife was texting some other guy and eventually blow up at her. The last time it happened she started to cry a little and said she thought I'd have more respect for her than that.

Honestly that was when I started to realize that I was the one with a problem. I started thinking about this a lot, and it was where I realized that my insecurities where what was happening, not "behind my back" texting on her part.

I have heard other guys tell tales of their (the man's) paranoia, insecurity, jealousy and controlling behavior actually repelling their wife/gf away from them--sometimes into another's arms. Those sound like sad, sick, self-fulfilling prophecies.

The point being, it's behavior that can really hurt your relationship, not only because it reveals your own insecurities but because it shows a lack of respect and courtesy for the other person.

God, please give me the strength to deal with it. I need help.

Well had he betrayed your trust in the past or you arent trusting your gut? I'm not trying to make you feel paranoid, just wandering....